Ceilings and Cornice

Sorry for not updating this blog for sometime... ;p I shouldn't give excuses..so I won't.

Our ceilings and cornices have been fitted in! The rendering guys will be back next Monday to complete the wall and ceiling plastering as well as to render the outside of the house. :) yaaay! We had some drama with the cornices. We were told if we were tiling to the top in the bathrooms, we should put the cornice only after the tiling is done. Since we are not doing the tiling to the top with the builder, we can only do the tiling to the top after handover. They builder will not handover the house without the cornice fitted. I tried asking if they could just pack out the cornice so that i would not have to rip it off after handover just for the tiles.

Unfortunately my 'heaven sent' supervisor said no. :( I must say that I was quite stressed out. At the same time the tile shop called me to say they didnt have enough of the tiles we ordered and we had to change our tile...buttttt the tile she recommended in replacement was a tile I was eyeing on before... :)))) I immediately told her yes! then i realised..gosh its more costly than the previous tile. She said she would give it to us for the same price :))) which is great! :) I express my concern with her about the cornice and she said that we have nothing to worry about. She has done her bathroom woth the cornices already fitted and then she did her tiling to the top. she said she is a fussy person and she could hardly notice it.

We are very happy with how the coffered ceiling looks. It gives an identity to our home. The same goes for the bulkhead in the kitchen. Below are some photographs from today:

The Nook looking into Laundry and bedroom3

Living looking out to the alfresco

Entry - Coffered ceiling

Kitchen

Meals and coffered ceiling in the living area

Lounge

Building Inspector ....

We managed to get a building inspectors contact through a friend of ours. He went through the bricks, roof and a bit of render inspection. He gave us some pointers. One of the things we did not realise when we signed our contract was that the builder was giving us metal beads (corners for the walls) to only 45 degree angle walls! Firstly, we do not have even have one 45 degree angle wall. Secondly, the administrator lady did not bother to explain to us that it is important to have these on most of your walls, especially the traffic-able areas. The building inspector explained to us that if we do not have these beads placed on the corners of the walls, in the future if we knock into the corners (which will happen), a chunk of the corner will get chipped off. We could render it back, but it will look really bad. *I panicked.* The render guys have finished quite a few walls. The metal beads should be placed before the render is done. I called my 'heaven sent' senior site supervisor, and he agreed that I could add it on immediately. If only the adminsitrator lady told us earlier we would have just included it in, some things are just essential. We dont want to be penny wise and pound foolish.

The building inspector gave us a few more pointers on our roof frames and tiles. He charged us $350.

I will be sending the report to the office to get things fixed. Hopefully I have no dramas. :)

We have Tiled Roof :)

Hey! We now have a tiled roof and some rendered walls! its all coming together. The electrical work has also been completed. I am not too happy with the height of the external GPO but apparently 1200mm above floor level is the standard height? Anyways, below is a photograph of the roof....

Alfresco has a ceiling!

We have a ceiling for the alfresco!!! yipeeeeeeeeee!

Roof Frames Completed!

Sorry I have not updated the blog for some time now. Well, as of yesterday we noticed that the roof frames are complete and they have started on the eaves ! Below are some photo updates :) We are hoping that the eaves will be completed today...... :)

Frame work

Notice the eaves....

Variations Approved!!

Yaaaay! Our variations have been approved. We managed to remove the paving from the contract, move the power and telephone points in the office into the nib area and change the garage door to daintree! Perfect! :) Also, since they had made a mistake of placing the 20mm protruding wall throughout the front elevation, which we had initially asked for and removed, we get that for free! :) which is great. It will give some identity to our home. :) Will update with more photos this evening after we visit the site. ;) Til then adios!

Roof Frames!

We met the senior site supervisor today to negotiate some changes to our home. He was such a nice guy. I am really relieved that we managed to see him and speak with him as we could not get anything going with the site supervisor or the customer liason office. I must say he is 'Heaven sent' :) hehe...

Okay here are some photos from today... we have frames !! it's all coming together... everything is looking good.

We have walls!

From the 15.10.2009 til 25.10.2009, we were away overseas on holidays. As soon as we landed on the 26th, we headed straight to our site and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the brickies have done quite a bit of work! Yesterday, we spoke to the site supervisor and he mentioned that brickwork will be complete either today or tomorrow!! :)

Feature wall :)

Double entry doors on the right :)

There's More :)

The excitement builds as we received door frames, a storage unit and a portable loo! I never imagined that the day would come where I would be so happy to see a LOO without having the need to use it ;p

Door Frames


Storage unit


The portable loo ;p

We've got Window frames and Bricks!!

When we visited the land today we were pleasantly surprised to find that the window frames and bricks have been delivered!!! :)) Hopefully they start laying the bricks soon! Here are some snap shots ;p

Window Frames :)

Bricks sitting on the slab ;p


Duraclay by Brickmakers... :)


Inner Bricks....




Outer bricks...

We have a SLAB!

We finally have a slab!!! I must say.. it looks so beautiful :) They have done a fantastic job. Below are some photos :

Bed 2

Main bath, powder room and Laundry

Living Area

En suite

Sunken Home Theatre

Office/prayer room.

Footings :)

Today the builder organised the termite protection and footings to be done. I got a call from the tradesman at the site, letting us know that they will be using an equipment to pour the cement for the footings, this will be a variation cost. Since it was already anticipated and placed in the contract, budget wise we are covered! phew! He said they will only be using part of the estimated cost in the contract, which is great. :) Below are the some photos we took this evening. I spoke to the supervisor and he said the slab will be down tomorrow! yipeeeeee!

The sunken home theatre ;p

Site works has commenced!

On Friday the 18th of September, the builder started site works by leveling the land. After work today, we went to have a look at our land....and guess what???!!!They have dug the land to place the footings and prepare for slab down!!! wooooohoooo! Here are some photos ! :)

From the south east side of the house

Small backyard :) 3.8m

Site Works!

I just got a call from our construction administrator with the news that we are starting site works on the 18th September!!! Yaaay! I will update this blog on the 18th night! hopefully with some photographs of our site works! :))

Below is a photograph of our vacant land...

Moving Forward

I found out that the builder was still waiting for the building license after submitting all the details the council required. The council's website states that the building license was complete - dated 21.08.09 and the 'today' was the 31.08.09! Does it really take 10 days to send it to the builder? I called the council and they confirmed with me that they had sent it out on the 22.08.09! so why was there a delay? I sent an email to my contract administrator, saying that the council has sent the building license, please check that it has not gone 'missing' in the mail. Half an hour later I get an email from her saying that the council had sent it to the wrong address??? arrrghhhhh! Another few days gone! just like that! The council mentioned that they had sent an email as well with the license attached. She said she had obtained the email copy now. Why do I have to keep doing their job? If I had not made that phone call to the council, the builder would have been waiting blindly.

There were some changes which had to be made to the structure of the house. The council requested us to build a cut of drain and soak well in front of the garage and an extra smoke alarm. Also, the builder has a new brick supplier. If we choose a brick from the new range, we would get a $250 credit back. That sounded ok, considering that we had to incur an additional $948 for the cut of drain and smoke alarm. :( but I guess it has to be done. We signed all the plans again yesterday (02.09.09) and asked when we would go to site. We were told that in 2 -3 weeks time, our slab will be down. Finally we are moving forward!

Exterior Selections

The following are our exterior selections.

Bricks - Austral Brick, Colour: Cream

Roof - Harmony, Tarragon Shingles

Window Frames - Black
Feature wall colour - Ferric Red


Wall Render colour - Lundy Grey
Downpipes & Meterbox- Lundy Grey


Gutter -Jasper



Entrance door - Corinthian PMAD104, Ferric Red


Garage door - Centurian, Mediterranean Jasper